The Proof Fairy » social media

3 Great WordPress Plugins for Social Media

Alison — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:16:18 +0000

Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

One of the best ways to get traffic to your website is to make sure you link it up with social media, so people can both follow you and share your content with their followers. I’ve tried out lots of different plugins over the years but am really pleased with these three.

ShareThis: Share, Email, Tweet, Like, +1 Made Simple

At first glance, this is exactly what it says: a simple way to let people share your content via email, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, on either pages, posts, or both. In fact, it’s the plugin I have decided to use on this blog, so those little buttons below are generated by the Share This plugin. However, although it’s really easy to set up initially, and there are plenty of options for styles of buttons etc, it’s also completely customisable.

For example, the basic plugin has a pop-up box when you hover over some of the share icons, and I found that rather annoying – so I’ve customised it to stop that effect happening. The plugin developers provide lots of support on their customisation page – you just copy the effect you want and add it to the “Modify other widget options” box in the plugin’s admin page.

1-click Retweet/Share/Like

This plugin lets you share a post to several different social media networks with … yep, you’ve guessed it – just one click. You can set it to show how many times each post has been shared, and you can also choose whether to have it at the top or bottom of each post or page. The widget originally shows icons for Google+, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, but a click of the arrows reveals more sharing options. As an added bonus, you can also set this plugin up to publish your posts to over 30 networks, which is very cool. You can see the plugin in action on the Bishopsgate Copy website – it’s very neat.

Social Media Widget

Now here’s a plugin that will save you loads of time. Lots of people like to have links in their sidebar to their various social media networks. In the past I would have to find a set of icons that included all the networks they needed, upload the icons, copy the image location into a text widget and then manually add in the URL for each network. It was very time-consuming and sometimes there’d be problems with getting all the icons the same size and style. This widget does the entire job for you.

Once installed, you drag it into your sidebar and you’ll be able to add your personal URL for a huge number of networks, which are grouped into categories such as Audio and Music, Business, Images and Video and, of course, Social Networking. You can choose from four pre-installed icon sets – Web 2.0, Heart, Cutout and Sketch – or upload your own icons. You can also choose the size and alignment. Click save and you’re done! You can see what the Web 2.0 icons look like on this very website.

(Quick tip – if you want to add a working Skype icon, enter your URL as skype:username)

So there you go, three really useful plugins for social media. Which are your favourite social media plugins?

Hands up … who isn’t online yet?

Alison — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:19:06 +0000

Having been online since 1996 I tend to assume that everyone else is too, so it always surprises me to find businesses and organisations that don’t have a web presence. I came across one such company last week. They are one of only two businesses offering a particularly niche service in this county. They have an advert in the Yellow Pages; their competitor has a website. Guess who seems to be getting the most work these days?

Yup, while the good old Yellow Pages used to be the first place people looked for services, now people head to Google. If you don’t have a web presence of some sort – be it a website, Facebook page or directory entry – you won’t get noticed. Even if you crop up in the Yell online directory, without a website link people are unlikely to phone you. (Perhaps one of the downsides of the internet is that we are more reluctant to pick up the phone and make an enquiry – we want all the information laid out before us before we make that call!)

So having an online presence is essential … yet there are hundreds of small businesses, local organisations and charities who don’t have one yet, not even a simple one page website. Perhaps it’s because they don’t understand why they need one, or they don’t know how to get one, or they think it will be too complicated or expensive.

So I’m on a mission: to get every small business, charity and not-for-profit organisation in the world online! OK, mission impossible – but if I can help raise the profile of even a few then it’s a job well done.

I currently offer a website package that’s tremendous value for money, but between now and the end of the year I’m going to make it even better. For just £200, any small business can have a five page website built for them, including a blog and a contact form, plus web hosting and a domain name – a saving of £50! And even better, charities and not-for-profits can have an even bigger discount, bringing the price down to £150. At that price, everyone should be able to get online in 2010!

I can’t keep the prices this low forever but I hope that you, or someone you know, will be able to take advantage of this offer, raise your online profile and watch your profits soar!

Why having an online presence is essential for all businesses

Alison — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 07:14:04 +0000

Having been online myself since 1996, the Internet is a huge part of my life, and I can’t remember how life was before it – or imagine how I’d cope without it! However, I’m continually coming across people – and, more often, businesses – who aren’t online and who certainly aren’t using social media within their marketing mix.

The worst case scenario is businesses who don’t have any kind of web presence at all. Now for me personally, when I want to find contact details for a company, or check out a restaurant, or find someone to supply me with a product, the first place I go is Google. And if that company has no presence at all, or shows up in the Yell listings but doesn’t have a link to a website, then the chances of me using them are tiny. I’ll always keep looking till I find a business with a website. Why? Because it means I can research them before I contact them and already feel I have a relationship with them before the business transaction even begins.

So for me, companies lose out on business completely through not having a web presence. But how much are they affected by not using social media to promote themselves?

Going by the video below, hugely. Even if you take the statistics with a large pinch of salt they do a great job of showing how vital the various forms of social media have become to everyday life.

For businesses, the statistics about the effectiveness of advertising in particular are worth taking note of. Only 14% of people trust advertisements. Only 18% of traditional TV ad campaigns make a positive ROI. 78% of us trust the recommendations of our peers. And how are those recommendations communicated? Through social media, of course. Through people blogging about your products, tweeting the links to friends, discussing your service on Facebook. The web in general, and blogs, Facebook and Twitter in particular, have taken over from traditional advertising - and you will lose out if you’re not part of the sopcial media party.

If you’re not using the web and social media to promote your business you ARE going to get left behind. If you’re not convinced of that, watch the video below. If you want to join the social media revolution and use it to grow your business, email me and ask me how!

7 ideas for your business blog

Alison — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 10:41:42 +0000

Blogging for business is a fabulous way to promote your website, because it keeps the content fresh and that attracts new visitors, keeps people coming back for more AND lets the search engines know your website is active. But inspiration often dries up after the first few posts – so what can you blog about? Here are some ideas to keep you blogging!

Blog about new products: Have you just started offering a new service or product? Blog about it! Write about the benefits to your potential customers, and then tweet about the new post or promote it on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Blog about companies you work with: We all use a variety of services to help us run our business. Why not blog about a good experience you’ve had with another company? Not only will it increase traffic to your own site, but if you let the other business know about your post, they might blog about you in return!

Blog about relevant stories in the news: Keep an eye on relevant industry news stories and blog about them. These are easy posts to make – so long as you link back to the original article, you can copy and paste the most interesting sections and just add a comment to give your own spin to the story.

Blog in pictures or, better still, in video: Videos on YouTube receive over 2 BILLION views A DAY, and more and more businesses are seeing the benefits of promoting through video. Make a video about your business, post it on your blog and add it to Youtube . You can film a process you do online, speak to camera about an area of your business that will help others, or even find a relevant video and comment on that.Failing that, use photos relevant to your business to brighten up a post.

Blog about what you’re up to: If you’ve been working on an interesting project, or with a new client, the story can make an interesting blog article. You’ll probably want to check that your client is happy for you to talk about them, but so long as you give them a link back to their website most people won’t mind!

Blog your knowledge: We all have information about our particular industry that we can share. Give some of it away in a blog post! Try writing a “top tips” list like this one, or sharing a couple of “industry secrets”.

Blog on other people’s blogs: This one is harder to organise but try striking up friendships with other bloggers in complementary industries, offer to write on their blog – and ask them to blog for you too! “Guest blogging” is becoming very common now – it gives your blog a fresh perspective and you’ll get the guest blogger’s fans coming over to your blog to see what’s going on!

I hope these ideas will give you plenty of inspiration your own blog. Please do leave me a comment if you use any of them, and I’d love to see what you’ve written!

Blogging for Business: video advert!

Alison — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 10:57:24 +0000

My first foray into video blogging – this is also on YouTube and I hope it will capture a % or two of the 2 billion+ views every day! The music’s a little cheesy but the message is there

Thanks to Maximum Marketing for creating this!